Pondering on Thinking

How does one teach someone to think?
More importantly, to persevere in the thinking process.

With the 16 Habits of Mind and the Mathematical Practices knocking on my door,
I have been paying more attention to HOW I teach then to just WHAT I teach.

This thinking thing has got me thinking.
(Which by the way is metacognition...thinking about thinking)
How does one instill the art of thinking in a classroom?

1)  Modeling.
To showcase what thinking is all about, teachers need to model this all important skill.  By thinking "outloud", teachers can show students what's going on in their head.  Students can see the progression of the teacher's thoughts and how those thoughts lead to new understanding, new questions, new pathways for learning.

2)  Engaging lessons.
To get students to start thinking, they need to be intrigued.  Once they are engaged in the activity/lesson, thinking should come naturally.  Tying lessons to real life so students can see a purpose behind their learning, should promote natural questioning from the student's part.

I noticed as I wrote this, that I kept saying "should".  As I try to find and design engaging lessons, I haven't hit on what I would call the gold nugget of all lessons.  Finding real life lessons is not that hard.  Finding a lesson to hold students' attention is a little more difficult.  Students seem to want to jump to the task or even to the presentation (aka the fun stuff) without thinking through the process or the math that they will need to know to solve the problem.  

3)  Questioning.
Getting students to think requires lots of questioning on the teacher's part.  Students want to take the path of least resistance.  By returning their questions with another question, a guiding question to direct them in the thinking process, puts the student back in the driver's seat.  They are forced to make sense of the information in a way they can understand and apply.

4)  Reflecting.
Asking students to reflect on what they have learned, pushes them to assess their own progress.  Reflecting on the methods or decisions they chose to use during class, invites the thinking process to assess the validity of these choices.

5)  Planning.
Thinking is a large piece when planning.  Having students plan their course of study requires them to think about what they know and what they need to know (KWL charts work great for this).  Once they have identified items to work on, they can create a timeline in which to complete the work.  Constant administering of the timeline is critical for students to adjust the time frames and assess their work and learning habits.

So while these are my thoughts on thinking at this point, I'm going to continue to investigate the role of thinking in the classroom.  I'll keep ya posted on what I find out.